Making A New Path
by Mononoke-hime x sukai kurora
Summary: After the events of volume sixteen, Zazie ponders.


_ Making a New Path _

As Zazie continued to walk along the path to the road to Yuusari, he thought again of his revenge. He had thought nothing else except of the gaichuu that had taken his parents' hearts since the age of ten. He remembered of how angry he had been when they had come for him after abandoning him in that so-call home for children, and of how he had been swallowed by an uncontrollable rage and grief when they were taken from him._ ...I couldn't even give them a funeral, _he remembered thinking. _All...I can do for them...is...avenge their deaths! _Zazie had kept the letter from his parents with him for four long years, unopened, because he thought he didn't deserve it. He had treated his parents like a pile of garbage, allowing judgment to cloud his mind. He hadn't allowed them to explain why they wanted him after leaving him for such a long time. Zazie had thought that he didn't deserve to be their son after they had died, even though that's what he thought day by day; he was their son. He thought he didn't deserve their last name, as it really didn't belong to him. Zazie stared at the letter now, actually reading the words. _How I wish I knew them._

A part of his mind however kept thinking about the sadness that he held his heart. He had managed to kill the gaichuu who had taken his parents' hearts…but he hadn't been able to save Emil. _Emil… _Zazie closed his eyes, remembering her. Emil had been like him. She knew what kind of pain he had gone through. He said so himself to Conner. He remembered of how kind Emil had been to him, of how she truly seemed to care for him. Of how…she seemed to truly see him. Zazie hadn't known that Emil had so much hatred instead her. He knew what hatred felt like, of how it ate you up and drove you mad. Zazie had been treading down that path, and he would have if it hadn't been for his friends. He had hated the village he grew up in. He hated the orphanage. And he especially hated the caretaker of that place. In his sleep at times, he dreamed of killing them. He would have to, eventually, if he hadn't met Conner, and later Lag. Emil had no one. And so the hatred had festered until it consumed everything, until Emil wanted to destroy everything and everyone that had caused her pain. Zazie now knew that her way – his old way too – to exact vengeance was not right. He didn't care that she killed her foster parents. The innocent people she killed haunted him, and he wondered if he would ever forgive her for that.

For reasons unknown to him, Zazie had been beyond relieved knowing that Emil had not killed his parents. She had not still been under the abuse of her so-called foster parents. It had pained Zazie to watch Emil suffer and be in pain, but Zazie knew that hating others from your pain wasn't the answer. He continued to feel saddened as he thought of her, remembering her smile. Was her kindness to him fake? Zazie didn't think so. He _couldn't _think so. Emil had been so kind and warm to him, something he hadn't really experienced before. If only her kindness had kept her from falling down to darkness. If only her kindness had healed the hole in her empty heart. _"Emil...if I'd just..met you sooner...maybe...I could have...saved you." _And now the girl who had reminded him of his former self was dead. He didn't know how to feel about that. As of right now, he felt absolutely nothing.

It was thanks to Lag that he knew what was in his parents' letter. Zazie start at the youngest letter bee as he walked along with his dingo and Roda. The boy seemed different somehow; changed. It was almost as if he held the fate of the world on his tiny shoulders. Zazie remembered of how he had picked up the ring with such a serious face. _What is it that he's not telling us? _Zazie thought. He remembered too of how Lag had promised him that he would give him the ring when he was finished with it. Zazie wasn't certain what to think about that. Behind him, Conner and his dingo Gus were puffing and huffing, trying to keep up with the younger letter bees. Zazie remembered of how he had meet Conner when he had been new. The first delivery Zazie had was delivering two dozen cupcakes to a letter bee who was too lazy to get them himself. Zazie had been annoyed, but Conner had remained his first friend since that day, trying to cheer him up and make him laugh all the time during the first few months they had known each other. Then he had simply accepted him as he was. Zazie smiled suddenly, the first real smile he had in…forever. He used to think that he would have nothing to live for once he destroyed the gaichuu that ate his parents' hearts; that he wouldn't be a letter bee anymore, but now as he walked with his friends, Zazie realized that he was going on a different path that he originally wasn't going to take. He would continue being a letter bee. He would be a letter bee named Zazie Winters.

_I don't know what kind of path I'm going on, but as long as I have these goofballs with me, I'll still continue on. I will still keep going no matter what happens…and I will not allow anyone to hurt like that again. I promise._

_ I promise, Mother and Father._

_ I promise…Emil._


End file.
